1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a drive circuit, and particularly to a drive circuit which drives indicators to indicate different statuses of a component in a computer system.
2. Description of Related Art
A computer system is composed of hardware and software. The hardware includes a motherboard, an optical disk drive, a hard disk drive, memory, a network card, and so on. When the computer system is running, it is necessary to know working statuses of the hardware. So indicators, such as LEDs (light-emitting diodes), are used to show the working statues of these components, and corresponding drive circuits for driving these indicators are combined in the computer system.
However, some drive circuits are so simple that only limited number of statuses of the component can be shown. For example, the indicator is lit to indicate component is currently operating, and the indicator is dark to indicate the component is idle. However, there may be other statuses of the component that would be useful to know. For example, a hard disk drive may be in a locked status to prevent reading and/or writing operations. Because the locked status of the hard disk drive cannot be shown with the given simple indicator, it is uncertain that whether the hard disk drive is locked or broken down.
What is needed is a better way to indicate the working statuses of the components in a computer system.